DPS Notices of Overcharge Cause Concern

The following article was taken from our Daycos September 2009 Newsletter:
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While we have been fairly positive in our recent evaluations of DPS invoicing, one area that has continued to concern us is the likelihood of GSA Notices of Overcharge on DPS invoices. Recently we have received a few Notices of Overcharge (NOC) on DPS invoices, and they have confirmed our belief that the biggest issue facing DPS invoicing is the risk of GSA NOCs down the road.

While the NOCs were not large in number or scope, they did illustrate a couple of issues that we expected to see with GSA. The first issue was a lack of clarity in the business rules. In this case it involved Storage in Transit, but we expect that there will be many areas where the business rules could be interpreted differently by GSA than the TSP community.

The second area the NOCs highlighted was the challenge in defending invoicing amounts under the electronic 400NG tariff. We had a NOC where GSA claimed we are using the wrong rate for a service. While we believe that GSA may be incorrectly applying the origin rate area instead of the destination rate area, it is very hard to defend why we use the rate we do on a 400NG invoice. The short answer is we use the rate we used because that’s what the 400NG electronic tariff tells us to use. We can’t say we applied rate on page whatever, because there are no underlying rates tables printed. It is all done electronically via programming code and explaining the rationale for that in a NOC protest is difficult, if not impossible. However, GSA has a right to verify the rates are correct, so we are faced with a situation that is very difficult on both sides.

In addition to the current NOCs we have protested, we are probably more concerned about the potential for NOCs down the road. While we have been successful for getting invoices paid to the TSPs, we have had to use a lot of workarounds and miscellaneous item codes in order to keep the money flowing. Down the road, this could cause problems with GSA if these issues are not properly documented and communicated to GSA.

When a PPSO or SDDC instructs us to bill a certain way to get around a bug or limitation in DPS in order to get paid, we have to be able to defend that billing for three full years. Using the reasoning that we were “told” to do something won’t be an acceptable argument in a NOC Protest. Based on the history of turnover on the government side, it is very likely the people who are telling us what to do won’t still be around in 2-3 years. We have to be able to show in writing what our billing was based on. Unfortunately, SDDC has been either resistant to put some things in writing, or it takes them some time to get guidance approved and published. In the meantime, all of the invoices being billed using workarounds are at great risk during an audit.

Unfortunately, there is very little we can do about this problem. If we were to avoid using workarounds or miscellaneous item codes, there would be a lot of money that would be uncollectable to TSPs, which is obviously an unacceptable position. Therefore our only option is to continue to use these workarounds, document as much as we can through notes in DPS and paperwork, continue to encourage SDDC and JPMO-HHGS to fix the issues causing the workarounds, and document the reason for the workaround when possible.

Related Posts

1. Notices of Overcharge - November 13th, 2006
2. Notices of Overcharge Being Issued on DPS Shipments - April 7th, 2009
3. Notices of Overcharge - August 24th, 2005